Operation Smile, Inc.

Nonprofit Issues:

Children & Youth, Health, International

Address:

6435 Tidewater Dr NorfolkVA23509USA

Mission:

Throughout the world, Operation Smile volunteers repair childhood facial deformities while building public and private partnerships that advocate for sustainable healthcare systems for children and families. Together, we create smiles, change lives, heal humanity.

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Reviews for Operation Smile, Inc.

IF THESE REVIEWS ARE NOT ACCURATE SOMEONE SHOULD HAVE THEM TAKEN DOWN OR AT LEAST CHECKED OUT. BASED ON THEM I WOULD NOT HELP THESE CHILDREN. I HAVE GIVEN TO SO MANY WHERE THE MONEY DIDN'T HELP THE CHILDREN AND IT IS DIFFICULT TO TRUST ANY CHARITIES LET ALONE ON LINE . SORRY SORRY, GET THIS FIXED.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

Unless you want to be endlessly harassed by obnoxious outsourced operators that live on commission, never do any business with this operation. I tried to do a good deed. My reward is endless phone calls. When I answer one of these calls and ask to be removed from being harassed, the operator hangs up on me before I even finish my request. This charity has lost sight of its mission.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

As of six months ago, their annual reports on their website shows 73.2% of funds went to programs, 20.6% to fundraising, 6.2% for administration. Not sure where the negative press is coming from . . . also, any reason management doesn't change the practice of calling those who donate? If this has changed, there needs to be a statement to this effect on this site so as not to dissuade those interested in contributing.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

If you don't mind be barraged by phone calls by solicitors after you donate wanting to bleed every cent from you, give. If you value your privacy and abhor robot calls, don't give. Very bad ratio of money donated and what actually goes to the kids. If you do give don't give them your real phone number. Great idea for a charity, but poorly run.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

I am sad to see people's negative comments. After all you are making an investment in the children. You are increasing their "Face Value". If along the way some fees are charged, it costs money to run any business! I simply am a volunteer fundraiser near Seattle. I am unpaid, and retired. Are the fees excessive, I dont think so. Office expenses may well refer to the fees they pay for facility rentals when they set up mission sites in Vietnam, or Philippines, China etc. Travel expenses would be high, sending volunteers and equipment around the world, is not getting any less expensive. I know first hand thet the funds are spent on surgical missions. I was contacted locally in Seattle, by a relative of a child in the Phil. The parents wanted to find out how to get in touch with Operation Smile. They sent the info to the relative here, and they furnished it to me. I sent it to Norfolk VA, Operation Smile. It was forwarded to Manila, Phil. Soon they contacted the family. The child was interviewed, and recieved the free surgery. I know, because they forwarded an email, to me stating that the 5 year old child had the operation 3 days earlier and was home resting.

How much did it cost to help change the childs Life?
In November 2012, over 1,200 surgical procedures were performed in the Philippines alone. There were a lot of volunteers along the way, but a lot of costs, paid for by donations, as well as medical supplies etc.

I have faith in the Operation Smile organition, but here will not be a monetary return on the dollars you donate. You will get a tax write off. And wake up one day with the realization that you changed many childrens lives for the better

I have personally talked with some of the doctors and staff who have travelled on numerous surgical missions. They love to smile after changing a childs life for ever. However that is in contrast to thepain of having to tell tell sad parents, that their child is not healthy enough for surgery, or they do not have enought funding for any additional surgeries this trip, and they must wait for the next mission. (next year?).

If the money in questionwas put in the surgical cashflow, children would be the real benefactors, and
that is the purpose of the donation after all!

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

I saw a TV story about Operation Smile and was moved to make a handsome donation. I then went to check them out but they are not rated. I looked at their IRS Form 990 for 2011 and was shocked by the numbers. In 2011 they collected $48mill. Of this they spent $3mill (6.25%) on grants. The rest went to Salaries - $7.7mill (16%); Office expenses - $6.4mill (13.3%); Travel - $4mill (8.3%); Fund Raising - $3.2mill (6.6%); "Other" (presumably also fund-raising related) - $2.3mill (4.8%). Judge for yourself. I would not donate an additional penny until their mission-related spending is above 80% of revenues not 6%! Besides, like other reviewers my telephone doesn't stop ringing to the point that this line has become useless.

How likely are you to donate to this group again?

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

Wife and I donated last year's tax refund to Operations Smile based on the worked they appeared to be doing and had planned to do so every year in the future but immediately regretted our decision to do so. Whatever the merits of their work in the field we immediately found ourselves in the midst of an avalanche of robo calls from every imaginable charity which are not covered by the Do Not Call list regulations and has left us with no recourse but to terminate our land-line service at the end of this month to put an end to the 10 to 15 calls a day, yes a day, that we've been receiving since our donation. This in addition to the small mountain of wasteful daily mailings we receive from these charities including Operation Smile the totality of which certainly qualifies as a small environmental catastrophe. They clearly sold our information as part of a donors list without any regard as to the impact and the material cost alone of the mailings from Operation Smiles would seem leave us hard pressed to imagine much if any actual care being delivered with even our sizable donation.

When was your last experience with this nonprofit?

Once you donate to Operation Smile you can expect to be bombarded with robocalling pleas for more donations. Their calling is extremely aggressive, starting at 7 am and continuing until 9 pm with as many as five calls in one day, seven days a week for months and months. They will not stop.
Donors soon regret their decision as no amount of pleading will get them to stop harassing you with constant phone calls.